In this episode of the In This Moment podcast, hosts Khalil and Janet discuss the current state of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in major corporations, particularly in light of recent backtracking by companies like Meta and Amazon.
They explore the different types of companies in the DEI journey, the challenges of sustaining DEI efforts, and the importance of integrating DEI into the core business strategy. The conversation emphasizes the need for organizations to understand the impact of diversity on their bottom line and the necessity of fostering an inclusive culture to achieve meaningful change
In this conversation, Khalil and Janet explore the critical role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in business, emphasizing the need for a strong business case for diversity. They discuss the influence of founder-led tech companies on DEI initiatives and the significant impact of leadership on organizational culture. The conversation also addresses the challenges employees face in aligning personal values with their workplace and offers actionable steps for individuals to advocate for DEI within their organizations.
Key Takeaways
- Recent announcements from major companies seem to indicate a troubling trend in DEI commitments.
- Companies are reacting to social media backlash regarding their DEI initiatives.
- There are different types of companies in their approach to DEI: sightseers, wanderers, journeyers, and those that never changed.
- Sustaining DEI efforts is challenging and requires ongoing commitment and resources.
- The perception of DEI as a temporary initiative can lead to regression in progress.
- Diversity should be viewed as a valuable asset to the organization, not just a moral obligation.
- An inclusive culture is essential for leveraging diversity effectively.
- Organizations need to ask what they are solving for with diversity to sustain their DEI journey.
- The impact of diversity on organizations should be framed as a business case, not just a moral one. Diversity must contribute to the bottom line for businesses.
- Leadership plays a crucial role in the success of DEI initiatives.
- Founder-led tech companies have a unique influence on DEI.
- Employees can advocate for DEI by changing their environment.
- Voting with our dollars can impact corporate behavior.
- Inclusion is an actionable step everyone can take.
- It’s important to align personal values with workplace culture.
- Employees have options: change, adapt, or leave.
- Organizations that prioritize DEI can gain a competitive advantage.
- Individual actions can collectively lead to significant change.
Full Transcript
Khalil (00:02.202)
Hey everyone, welcome to the In This Moment podcast. Before we get started, we just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the devastating wildfires that are happening in Southern California. Obviously, we hope that you and your loved ones are safe and taking care of yourselves and each other. We've got some important topics to get to, but before we did that, we wanted to highlight this and make sure that you are safe and secure. We'll link to some resources as well, but Janet, I know you wanted to say a couple things.
Janet (00:31.628)
Yeah, it is sobering in this moment sometimes to think about having the conversations that we're having in this podcast when that's happening there and things are happening around the world. But we are always cognizant when we are doing this work that there's tragedy happening and that this is just one of many discussions that needs to be had. And our hearts and our minds are still with those who are suffering and will continue to suffer as a result of these fires.
And we just hope everybody's taking as much care of themselves as they can and staying as safe as they can. we just hope that people are gonna be as okay as is possible in these situations. And our hearts and minds are with you.
Khalil (01:16.736)
Absolutely. So with that said, we know that there are other important conversations to get to. And so we really want to tackle the conversations that are at the center of the In This Moment limited series podcast. So Janet, In This Moment is officially live. When we were first putting this together and all of the order of the episodes, we were going to start with the language of DEI.
But now we've reordered some things around because you and I are both getting a lot of messages from people asking us to weigh in on what's happening in this moment, which includes announcements from Meta and Amazon earlier this week that they're adjusting or erasing their DEI commitment. So get in there.
Janet (01:58.892)
Yeah, well, we just cannot sit back and watch this happen. We cannot just not in this moment talk about it because that's part of what is making this moment a moment. As companies have been backpedaling on their DEI commitments faster than politicians backpedal on what they promise in a campaign, and it is happening in this moment. But
That's why we felt like we need to tackle it first because we do want to respond to that. And we're hoping that this podcast, whenever possible, can respond to things as they happen. So this is right here. And you're right. I started responding over the weekend to actually a positive one. But it's positive and negative that's going on. But it's the negative stuff that really is making us nervous at this
Khalil (02:51.075)
Yeah, Janet, you're not wrong. And to your point about the positive and the negative, it feels like every day there's a new headline about a company that's hitting the brakes or putting it in reverse. And part of what we need to dissect and what we're going to talk about here is whether it's truly a trend, is it truly the majority or is it simply an outcome of where we're putting our attention, right? Headlines grab attention and outrage drives headlines. But is it really a full scale pullback?
So one way or another, there are certainly some high profile large companies who are being unambiguous about how they're approaching this moment. And that's what we want to talk about.
Janet (03:25.752)
Yeah, and I mean, these are shifts that are not subtle. You mentioned Metta in the beginning. They stopped all their DEI initiatives, including inclusive hiring. They moved their trust and safety teams to Texas, which can probably eventually lead to less content moderation and more hate speech has already started. They disbanded fact checking, changed terms of service to say that users can assert that gay and trans people have mental illnesses.
I mean, they're just opening the door to stuff. Then you have Amazon, they eliminated all DEI roles and initiatives because the DEI, anti-DEI activist trolls came out of the woodwork at them. And then X, I don't even have anything to say about X. mean, X started off problematic. So that's what we're seeing. And the question is, is this just organizations really being afraid of the social media backlash or
Is it a calculated strategy to do something else? Is it political? Or is it something bigger than that? What actually is going on?
Khalil (04:31.532)
Well, that's the essence of the question, right? What actually is going on? So I had asked you this question before and you started to kind of break down the different, almost archetypes of companies. You know, after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, kind of the social reckoning that happened, it felt like you started to see some trends through a couple different companies. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that.
Janet (04:54.67)
thought when you and I talked about it, I said that I saw three different types of companies and typically I'm gonna give them names, right? But so I thought that maybe three types of companies sort of fell out of the DEI rush in 2020. There were the sightseers, there were the wanderers and there were the journeyers, okay? Because we talk about this being a journey. So the sightseers were performative. They probably never really had any intention of doing this work anyway. So they jumped on the bandwagon and they just looked at it.
The wanderers came in, they had the best of intentions, but they lacked direction. So they didn't have the skill, they didn't have the tools, and therefore, you know, they're looking at now not quite knowing what to do with the things they started on. And then there were the journeyers. Those are the ones who truly committed, they knew what, they knew why, they knew how, they had maps, they had snacks, they had everything they needed to be on this journey. And then you mentioned that maybe there was a fourth type.
Khalil (05:53.421)
Yeah, and from my perspective, the fourth type were the ones that kind of never changed. And so originally when we were talking about it, I said, those are the ones that maybe just looked at all of the summer of 2020 and said, we're not engaging at all. We don't want to be involved. We don't want to have that conversation. We've decided this isn't a place where we or our employees should weigh in. And the more we were thinking through that, I started to think...
There are actually some organizations that were already on a trajectory of one of the ones that you're describing, right? They were already doing a bit of the, you know, kind of sightseers where they were already doing really well. They didn't change a lot or, you know, the wanderers or the journeyers or whatever that were going in whatever direction they were already going. And 2020 didn't really have much of an influence on them.
So it felt like your examples of those companies definitely resonated and I've seen those organizations as well. And now the question is, is any of that changing? Are they going in different directions? Like what is actually happening right now? Because that's the question that people keep coming to me with is I'm reading the headlines. Is this new? Is the entire landscape changing?
Janet (07:03.416)
Well, you know, back in the newspaper days, they used to say if it bleeds, it leads, and that's the truth. And if you think about the algorithms that drive social media, then yes, the stuff that's negative, the stuff that causes a big response, that's what's gonna be there. What's interesting to me is it's such an odd environment, it's such a confusing environment, that even when people do the right thing, what you see are negative headlines.
Khalil (07:07.276)
Mm.
Janet (07:30.382)
Think about Microsoft late last year. They got slammed for getting rid of their entire DEI staff. They reorganized two people. And it was because somebody who didn't like it was disgruntled, wrote something, took off. Microsoft is eliminating it. Well, we know the CEO of Microsoft. And I personally reached out to her and she's like, no, that's not what's happening. And then of course, in a couple of days, we found out that was the case. McDonald's just recently got slammed.
Khalil (07:30.466)
Mmm.
Khalil (07:34.07)
Yes.
Khalil (07:57.798)
Yep.
Janet (07:59.212)
And people didn't really read to see that all they did was they'd hit their goals, so they changed their goals. They actually are evolving. I think why it feels so bad right now is because we do have a political landscape that is pushing back against the EI. And so you have all the headlines and you only see the bad stuff because the bad stuff is just more exciting. People get more excited about it. People respond to it.
But the reality is there are companies who are doing this. There are quite a few. And so you have it on both sides. I personally believe that the companies that are committed to this aren't changing it. They're just doing what they're gonna do. They're not gonna change it. I think a lot of those who jumped into this in 2020, that first group, I think a lot of them are now just doing what they were gonna do anyway. The ones in the middle, I think are the ones that started on this path. And for some reason now,
they're diverging, they're either going backwards, they're stopping. They're the ones that you see in the headlines because you like you take the John Deere's of the world. John Deere had a very, very strong DEI program. I know, I spoke there a couple of times. Tractor Supply had a very strong DEI program. And in fact, they had an unusually strong one. So those are the ones that were doing the work and now they decided not to do the work. And the question is why?
Khalil (09:10.48)
Mm.
Janet (09:24.706)
That why I think is going to be something that companies that are still doing the work that maybe that middle group may in the future start asking themselves. And I know we both have opinions on what that why is. So we'll start with you. Why do you think that companies that started on this path and seem to be moving along now some of them are not doing it or are may in the future decide to pull back from DEI? What do you think is going on?
Khalil (09:43.819)
Yeah, I think it's a couple different things. And Janet, you've spoken about this idea of the regression to the mean, right? I think there were practices that organizations took that were not ultimately sustainable. And the analogy that I've used a number of times is like New Year's resolutions, right? And so in the summer of 2020,
A lot of folks had a reckoning and they said, you know what, we need to change the way that we do work and we are gonna make these big proclamations, we're gonna do these massive things, we're gonna fundamentally shift, we're gonna put metrics in place without any real research or a kind of thought behind them, we're gonna put people in place but not give them the resources or the team or the positional authority and kind of power in the organization. And then the kind of wake up happens.
Like, you know, we're middle of January. How many people are still running every day or are still eating kale every day or still doing whatever they said they were going to do? And now it's been okay. And so a lot of those companies that maybe even had some solid intentions have realized that this work is never ending. And I think that for some organizations, that's incredibly scary. But when you put it in the context of finance is never ending, operations is never ending, strategy is never ending.
you will never come across a business that says, our strategy is done. Don't worry about our competitors. Don't worry about the marketplace. Don't worry about anything. We're good. But when we talk about, well, we've achieved certain things and now we need to keep moving forward, or it's more challenging than we thought it was going to be. So how do we pivot? It's just a different conversation when it comes to people. And it's an easier conversation to say, you know what, nevermind. We don't want to continue down that path.
And so think it's just, companies largely tend to follow one another. We saw the same thing with the Jack Welch's of the world when it was Rankin, Yank for performance appraisals and all of that. A lot of other companies got on board with it. I think now we're seeing some of that same thing where folks have said, this is more difficult than we thought it was going to be. Let's just go back to eating not so healthy. Let's go back to what felt good before. And that's where we need to help our organizations.
Khalil (12:00.958)
follow through on those commitments that we've made and be supportive. Because if a friend stopped running, we'd go out and run with them, right? We'd say, hey, remember you wanted to do this, here's why. What we probably wouldn't do is start beating them over the head or making them feel horrible about what they're doing, because all that does is force folks to retreat. We need everyone leaning into these conversations and into this world.
Janet (12:25.932)
And I think part of the problem is that the way DEI is viewed within organizations. I've had this discussion with this, the moral case and the business case, and we'll get into that at some point in here. But in the shorter term, you to follow with your analogy of New Year's resolutions, you don't start running because you want to run or because your goal is to run two miles a day. You start running because your ultimate goal is health.
Khalil (12:31.134)
Mm. Yep.
Janet (12:55.63)
Companies set these goals, representation goals or things like that, and then they hit that goal, or don't hit it because they don't understand why they set that goal, whether or not that number makes sense, and it's just too hard, and they go, you know what, it's just not working. The question I always ask is, why did you set that goal? Did you set that goal just like numbers? And you wanna say, you wanna check boxes? No, you set that goal because at some point you told yourself, I hope,
I hope at some point you told yourself that diversity has value to this organization. Diversity helps us do what we need to do better. Inclusion is going to be necessary in order for us to leverage the diversity that we have. And if we don't have equity, we'll never sustain it. That's the conversation I wish organizations were having. I'm afraid that most aren't. And so therefore, when all they're looking at is some number that they pulled out of the air, even if they've come to it from a logical
Khalil (13:31.667)
Mm.
Khalil (13:42.012)
Yep.
Janet (13:54.154)
stand a logical deduction, if they're not hitting that number or they are hitting that number, okay, we're done. And what they forget is that it's a bigger picture. That is never the goal. That is an interim goal. Any kind of measure is an interim goal. And it's always an interim goal because A, you have a bigger goal and B, because even when your bigger goal is to make the company more profitable, to drive more innovation, wherever your bigger goal is, diversity itself is always changing.
Khalil (14:05.48)
Mm-hmm.
Janet (14:23.694)
It always changes. you we're talking.
Khalil (14:23.859)
Yep. And that's incredibly frustrating for a lot of folks, right? It's incredibly challenging because they feel like the goalpost is always moving. But again, that's exactly it. Like this is a dynamic 12 sided die with all sorts of different things going.
Janet (14:34.24)
As it is.
Khalil (14:42.396)
And if we're looking for simple answers in a complex environment, what we wind up getting is what we're seeing right now, where it's an on-off switch, right? It's a spigot. We either say, yes, I'll turn on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or no, I'll turn it off, or moving on to something else. But that level
Janet (14:49.326)
Mm-hmm.
Khalil (14:58.985)
of intention that you were talking about to say, well, what are we trying to accomplish? How does this help us get there? Are we seeing that? Like if we're doing something and it's not working, how do we do some things differently? How do we apply the same degree of rigor and tenacity and intention to this that we are to so many other things? And we can go off in a lot of different directions, but I feel like...
You know, it's a similar conversation where, you know, so many organizations weren't talking about culture and all of that. And then as soon as it was about return to office, they were like, now it's culture. Now we need to, you know, now we need everybody back together. I feel like it's this on off. And that's what I am always trying to help organizations do differently is to think differently about these conversations. And you and I, as much as we may want to speak and get out, we will never be in all of these places, which is why I love having a vehicle like this.
Janet (15:28.79)
Mm-hmm.
Khalil (15:49.363)
to be able to equip some of our partners and peers out in the world with here's how you can think about that, here's how you can talk about that, here's what you can do about
Janet (15:57.996)
And I honestly believe that there's a basic question that every organization needs to ask itself when it decides to go on a DEI journey. What are we solving for with diversity? If you don't ask yourself that question upfront, then it's gonna be very hard to figure out A, which direction you're going in, and B, it's gonna be hard to sustain the journey. Now, some people will say,
Well, we're solving for a better culture. Okay, that's a very good thing to do because I think that culture is necessary, but once again, I think it's interim goal because at the end of day...
Khalil (16:36.971)
I was just saying, I feel like you're saying that you're not there yet. You're like, eh, it's a good goal, but keep going.
Janet (16:40.682)
No, it's an interim goal. Because let's face it, if you are in a capitalistic society, you are solving for one thing and one thing only, the bottom line. That is what you're solving for. And it feels messy to say that. It doesn't feel really nice to say that. But at end of the day, that is the environment that we're taking and putting DEI in. So
Khalil (16:53.767)
Hmm.
Janet (17:07.25)
rather than look at that and say, well, that sounds exploitative. You know, we don't want to do that. Think about it this way. No, I firmly believe that diversity does have value to the bottom line. So if organizations could start thinking that way and start acting that way and start doing the things that they do with any other asset that has value to the bottom line, which is sustain it, support it, do all those things, stick with it, help it change, evolve it.
Khalil (17:16.519)
.
Janet (17:37.132)
That's what they do with other assets. If we start thinking about diversity as a value to the organization for the reasons that organizations exist, which is to create a profit, return value to stakeholders, affect the bottom line. If we start seeing it that way, then what's wrong with that? And isn't that exactly how we manage to sustain this? Because to your point, you're not going to win political wins change.
Khalil (17:47.59)
You
Janet (18:05.996)
or things get difficult, you're not gonna say, we're not gonna do finance anymore. We're not gonna do strategy anymore. And because those things are necessary for us to affect the bottom line. if diversity is the same thing, you won't turn that off either.
Khalil (18:19.995)
Yep, absolutely agree. Listen, I've often said, look, I clearly don't use shampoo or conditioner, but it feels like diversity, equity and inclusion are kind of a two in one, right? A buy one, get one free type of thing. Where ultimately, regardless of your positioning, there are folks that will say they believe fundamentally it's right for society. I know a lot of those people, I care about them deeply. There are folks that will say it's great for the bottom line of the organization. It helps us to succeed in the marketplace.
Janet (18:26.99)
you
Khalil (18:49.006)
and to win and to return value to shareholders and stakeholders. I care about a lot of those people as well. Why is it an either or? It does both of those things. That's what we can see. But I think that to your point, when it's only positioned as one of those, it feels like a bolt on and it feels like a thing that you either don't really need to be behind or you can just kind of turn it off when it's no longer favorable or easy.
Janet (18:58.83)
It's a both and. It's a both and.
Janet (19:17.358)
I because I do see it both ways in the sense that, you I'm the one who's always on the soapbox saying that I believe business is uniquely positioned to actually make a difference in this area, to actually dismantle systemic inequity. I still believe that. I also believe that business is not going to sustain and pay attention to and support the DEI if it doesn't have business value. But the trick is,
Khalil (19:27.578)
Mm.
Janet (19:45.934)
The trick is that you can't leverage that value, you can't extract that value, you can't get that return on that investment if you don't have a culture that is inclusive. And if you have a culture that is inclusive and trying its best to be equitable so that it can maintain and sustain the diversity that it has, then you get up with the culture that you want. And then you are dismantling systemic inequity. I mean, let's face it, when we talk about equity writ large,
We're talking about going up against systems, huge systems, systems that were created not by companies, but by governments. And so if you're a company, go, well, what can I do about that? Probably nothing in the long term, but you can decide what happens within your own four walls. You can decide what happens in your own company. And if every company everywhere decided to pursue equity, then you know what? Eventually, equity would
Khalil (20:34.169)
Yes. Yep.
Janet (20:43.982)
I mean, eventually that's what it would happen to a huge number of people anyway, or to a huge swath of individuals. But it's only going to be, you cannot have one without the other. I mean, at end of the day, you're going to have that. getting into the argument back and forth, I think it doesn't help us. But unfortunately, I think the business case has gotten a bad name.
because it seems to be the opposite of the moral case. And I like to talk more about an impact case. What is the impact of diversity on organizations? And I try to always remind organizations that I'm dealing with, you're a business, okay? You're a business. Okay.
Khalil (21:12.773)
Hmm.
Khalil (21:16.354)
Mmm.
Khalil (21:29.925)
Are you grabbing the organization by the shoulders and shaking it? You're a business.
Janet (21:36.285)
It's okay to say, and in fact, I really wish you would say that diversity has to contribute to the bottom line because I believe that it does. And maybe that's the leap of faith that doing this work that I personally have to take. Maybe it's a leap of faith to say that I believe that diversity has positive business value.
Because I do know that the stats that are out there that McKinsey throws out there all the time, I do know that those are more correlative than they are causative, but I'm ready to make that causative case. And I think if you're going to invest in it and you have invested in it, it is to your benefit to make that causative case.
So.
Khalil (22:19.982)
We could spend a lot more time here and I know we will, but there are a couple other things that we wanted to touch on. And one of them, obviously we've been talking about the role of the workplace and businesses. You you have done a brilliant job of articulating as I feel as well, that business cannot solve for everything, but obviously it has its place. But there's a conversation happening right now, which is not necessarily as much about the workplace at least to start. And that's around founder led tech companies.
So we were talking before and you were saying this is kind of a new breed. So tell me, tell the people that are listening what you're thinking about when you're seeing the exes and the metas and some of the organizations that are out there. What are your concerns? What are your thoughts? What are you hearing and seeing?
Janet (23:05.528)
Well, because you know, I immediately went, these founder led tech companies, they're the devil. And you immediately pushed back on me like, well, there are other founder led technology companies that been around for a while that maybe they aren't the devil. Let's look at what Apple just did, you know? So I think what it is is that what we have now, we have a certain type of company that is somewhat new to the world. Founder led companies have been around forever. Founder led tech.
companies have been around for a minute. But when you look at the ones that are in the news for, that we're seeing the Meta, Amazon, Twitter, let's just call it TwitterX, let's just call who we are, that's what we're talking about. But you you can look at some of the AI companies too, and some of the work that they're doing. I think what's different is the founder influence is very big in those organizations. And so the founders values,
Khalil (23:59.713)
Mm.
Janet (24:05.07)
are going to have a lot to say about the organization. So what does that mean for other organizations? You know, do we know for a fact what the values were of the founders who started Apple and Microsoft? We know that they started probably like everybody else. They gave value statements that seemed to be such that you would not want to stop having, you wouldn't want to get rid of DEI if you were going to be aligned with your values, but so did
Khalil (24:26.876)
.
Janet (24:34.218)
matter when it first started, you know, all that. So what happens? Well, I think the difference is you have these companies, the companies that are really leading sort of this backlash are newer companies where the founder is very much in place, where the founder has a whole lot more influence than they do in some other companies that were founder-led tech companies. And you have a board that's pretty much handpicked. They're just structured differently.
Khalil (24:35.694)
Mm-hmm.
Khalil (24:53.571)
Hmm.
Janet (25:03.82)
And so what you have is the influence is greater of the founder himself, herself. They're just bigger there. What that tells me is, yes, these companies are somewhat outliers, but it's true in any company. Leadership has a huge role to play in whether or not DEI works within an organization, whether it stays within an organization.
Khalil (25:26.683)
Yep. Yep.
Janet (25:31.81)
And I think that the founder led companies are just sort of a very concentrated microcosm of that reality. You see them that way. Not to mention the type of companies we're talking about here, Meta, X, Amazon, they're behemoths. I mean, they are huge. And Meta and X are pushing information. So some of it is the nature of the company, but could this have happened before these companies were around? Maybe.
Khalil (25:48.482)
up.
Janet (26:01.72)
But I do think this is a unique moment in this moment where the type of company, the influence of the founders and the values that those founders hold is having a huge effect on DEI overall.
Khalil (26:09.635)
Yeah, and so, A, you said it beautifully. There's nothing I would add there. while they're not tech companies, it does see, you know, as you're talking through this, it's reminding me of the Ben and Jerry's, the Patagonia's, the REIs, the companies where the owner founder, you know, had an outsized impact.
And I think to your point about kind of a concentrated microcosm, this is just, we don't see it as often in a larger organization, but the CEO, the C-suite, the senior leaders there, their level of interest or adoption or comfort around these things absolutely influences the organization.
And I've long advocated that employees can kind of lift up and it can't only be top down. absolutely needs to be, the CEO is not interviewing everyone. My experience in an organization is absolutely impacted by the CEO, but it's also impacted by my peers and my partner, manager and other people. But I think that you're absolutely right is that right now what we're seeing is we're seeing this play out.
in a very particular way. And we're seeing it very accelerated and we're seeing kind of the transparency of everything that's happening, but it's not necessarily brand new. We've seen other organizations that have said, we do care about this and we're willing to put our resources and our effort behind it. And now we're seeing some organizations founder led largely in the tech spacing. We don't care about this and we're going to pull our resources back and redeploy them into some other spaces. So one of the things
Janet (27:51.384)
I mean, it depends on whether, it depends on whether companies like Apple see diversity as a competitive advantage. Okay. And they, they've been around long enough maybe to come to that conclusion. They've been, it has been successful for them. They've made, they have made the causative argument within their companies, even if they're not putting it out there. Costco, you know, pushed back against it forward and said, we believe that diversity.
is important to us. It gives us competitive advantage. And that's back to the business point about it, right? So businesses receive this. Exactly, they say it's competitive advantage. So you have organizations like Meta and Twitter who are saying, well, we don't really see it as a competitive advantage. mean, you got Meta making that foolishness about we need more masculine energy. I mean, so once again, it's the founder.
Khalil (28:25.378)
And that's the same thing. That's what Apple said.
Janet (28:45.772)
saying this and driving and they have that kind of control over their company and they haven't been around as long. So maybe if they fail or if they cease to be as competitive then maybe they'll learn that lesson too and then maybe they'll say something different. I don't know but like I said because as long as it is very much the leadership making this decision and being in a position to guide that decision that much it's going to be with that leader things. But
Khalil (28:51.115)
Mm.
Janet (29:15.79)
It is the same even in a company where it's not this visible and the leader is not that influential on the decision of a company. Leaders matter. And if it's a big established company where the leader doesn't care about this or doesn't see DEI as a competitive advantage, even though you'll have entire departments working towards it, their job is a little bit harder. They're climbing a bigger hill.
Khalil (29:25.373)
Mm.
Janet (29:45.934)
if they had the leader who was behind it, advocating for it, and allocating resources, which you mentioned earlier is something that they didn't do. Leaders have an outsized role to play in this.
Khalil (29:46.058)
Yep.
Khalil (29:59.228)
Absolutely. So let's get to the kind of final portion of this particular conversation, because to your point, I don't know about most of our listeners. I will probably never have the fortune of being a multi-billionaire owner, you know, CEO of a tech company. But you and I have been getting a lot of comments on LinkedIn from folks that are like, you know, I'm an employee. I'm a, you know, a user of services.
What should I be doing? What can I think about? What is the step that I can or should be thinking about taking? And while I don't think we want to necessarily prescribe to anyone, this is what you should do. I think to your point, you've identified these different types of companies. You've talked about some of the things that are going on. I'd love to touch on like, what do we do? What do we recommend? How do we support people that are trying to figure out, where do I go from here?
Janet (30:53.934)
You know, it's just like you said earlier, DEI is not an easy thing to do because the answers aren't easy. It's complicated. It is very tempting to say, and I've said it, you well, then you just need to walk away from these platforms or you need to not be at an organization that doesn't reflect your values. Let's face it, we have bills to pay, you know, so you can't just necessarily quit your job.
People are very connected with the platforms that are out there. You're on Instagram, you're on, some people are still on X. I remember when Elon Musk bought X, I canceled my Twitter account immediately and I haven't missed it. But I'm still using, and I don't use Facebook anymore, but do I still use Instagram? Absolutely I do. so, the reason I think it's not a simple answer is because at the end of the day, if one or two of us,
Khalil (31:40.896)
.
Janet (31:52.982)
A lot of us just stop using that, using it. What's going to happen? those platforms going to go away? Probably not. If one or two of us quits our job because we don't agree with the company, is that company going to change? No, it's not. I believe that there's not a simple answer. you can walk away from some things, but it takes a, you your point you brought up to me earlier was privilege. I know so many small businesses that depend on these platforms.
Khalil (32:06.911)
and
Janet (32:23.662)
So I think that, like I said, there's no simple answer to this. I think we can vote with our dollars, you know, we can decide where we're gonna shop and then those advertisers who are on these platforms have to think about it and they're the ones that can make these platforms change. know, X lost a lot of revenue because they just, they created an environment where people were like, you know what, I'm not gonna shop with companies.
Khalil (32:31.727)
Okay.
Janet (32:50.104)
that are on X and are helping them stay in business, they stop shopping with them. We have to vote where we can. We have to fight where we can. We have to vote vote. I mean, and it seems like a very long-term solution, but it is a long-term solution. It's a complicated solution because there's no easy way to unravel this. But I think if we are all looking at it every day and saying, is important to me,
and I will do what I can do on my individual level, either I won't use those platforms, I may leave a organization whose values I don't agree with. We may do that, but like I the answer is not easy.
Khalil (33:21.759)
Yeah, I agree. so I've thought about this a lot and talked about it a lot. I have a very conflicting point of view with things like boycotts and kind of how it comes up. And that is very much on the consumer side of things.
On the employee side of things, and again, the vast majority of my space and my experience is kind of what does it look like in the workplace? I've always found that you have kind of three options. You can change yourself, you can change the environment, or you can leave, right? And by change yourself, there are some times where you say, you know what, maybe this isn't as important to me as I thought it was. And that may be okay. Like I have left organizations where I've decided I no longer align with the values. It may be long-term, it may be short-term.
And that's absolutely fine. To your point, there are some folks that cannot move on. They don't have the same options. They've got a great role. They are taken care of, know, parents or children or whatever the case may be. And I don't think any of us can or should judge everyone's individual situation. So some folks will decide that I need to get okay with being in the environment that I'm in and I need to recognize. And I think, you you and I have chatted about this before.
your company is not an extension of your personality, right? There are things that any organization is gonna do that you would say, if I were the billionaire owner of this company, I would do it differently. And for most of us, we say, well, I wouldn't put money there, or I would do this, or I would do that. For some of us, it will become enough of an issue that we say, all right, I can't change myself. That is a part of my values. I'm not willing to leave that behind or let it go. So can I change the environment?
And there are productive ways to look at how you change your environment. So whether it is becoming a part of employee resource group, and we'll have some time to talk about those, whether it is communicating with your leadership, whether it is finding opportunities for mentorship and sponsorship, whether it's leaning in, whether it's communicating the business case, whether it's hiring on your own team and the teams that are around you differently, how do you change the environment to continue to make it what you want it to be? Because
Khalil (35:36.7)
You know, it's kind of that classic be the change you want to see, right? Far too often I see people saying if only the leaders would do it and the leaders are pointing and saying if only the employees would do it and employees are pointing and saying if only the board cared about it, everyone's pointing at one another. But there's so much opportunity in the seat that we're in with the opportunities that we have available to us. So if you can't change yourself and you can't change the environment, you may decide to leave. And that is one of the most important things that you
may do, right? And we know there are some folks with a lot of options that'll say, hey, listen, I am a top five coder. I can get a job coding for any organization out there. I want to code for some place that is going to believe that I add value and that the people like me and around me should have opportunities to be successful here and that that should be fairly distributed across a lot of different people.
and that we should be dismantling a bunch of those systemic issues that are still pervasive in our organization. And if you're not willing to do that, then I will move on to wherever else I can do that. And my mother used to always say, and anybody that's heard me speak has heard this a million times, she would say, if you don't treat people well, they will either quit and leave or they'll quit and stay.
Janet (36:54.392)
Yeah.
Khalil (36:54.629)
And the thing that I would just encourage people to not do OWIT is to quit and stay because it doesn't road your own personal brand. And so if you've decided the time is right to move on and I can no longer be successful here and this place no longer aligns with my values, do what you can. Like are you out there yet? Are you applying? Are you leveraging your network? Or are we like a lot of other times sitting around saying, I really wish I could gain more muscle. Why can't somebody work out for me?
Janet (37:12.258)
the field.
Khalil (37:21.519)
If I'm not willing to put the work in, it's probably not just going to naturally happen. And so if you have decided the time is right to move on, then make a plan to move on. And I know it's not easy. It never is. And it can be incredibly challenging out there. But for me, change the environment, change yourself, or leave.
Janet (37:40.94)
And to your point about changing the environment or changing yourself, more than likely, anybody who's listening to this podcast has an interest in advancing DEI. I know there's some folks who wanna shoot it down who gonna listen anyway. Well, we like you too. Come on and listen, maybe you learn something. But assuming that most people who are here are here because they believe in this work.
The thing to think about if you think about the acronym DEI, I usually write it D-I-E because I think inclusion's in the middle of it. Inclusion is the one actionable thing that everybody can do from whatever seat they're in. Maybe you can't change the diversity of an organization. Maybe you can't deal with the, maybe you don't have any control over the policies and procedures, but you can decide to be inclusive. And so I think that one of the things is if you care about this work,
Look at it every day. Everything you do, ask yourself, how can I make a difference here? And you name some of the things that you could do, but those are things that you as an individual can do. And if you are a member of a traditionally underrepresented group, the folks that everybody thinks DEI is for, then I think you ought to ask yourself, how am I leveraging my diversity? I mean, before,
Well, I still do it. I work a lot with leaders, but I was an executive speechwriter and for a long time I was the only black executive speechwriter in the Fortune 100 at the C-level, working at the C-level. I had a unique opportunity to have the ear of the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world. Why would I not use that position to advance DEI? And I don't mean to make policy or whatever.
Khalil (39:20.444)
No.
Janet (39:36.408)
But just being in that spot gave me the ability to leverage who I was, my perspective, have somebody, have leaders look at the world differently just because I'm there to say that maybe there's a different world. So I think that no matter where you are, there is a way, if you're thinking about this, if you're intentional about it, there's a way to advance it. And that may be enough, even if you're in an environment that you don't necessarily agree with the values or you think is going in the wrong way, that may be enough to change the environment.
But that's the part that you have to change about yourself, the willingness to be intentional about this. And to your point, if you're intentional, and you're doing everything you can do, and you are changing the environment as much as you can and it won't change, and it's still not okay, yeah, it's time to go. I I tell my children all the time, sometimes it's just time to go. And we leave for other reasons.
Khalil (40:21.527)
Now.
Khalil (40:31.163)
Yep.
Janet (40:31.33)
You know, in the communications world, the mantra is you gotta move out to move up. We leave for other reasons, we outgrow positions. There's nothing wrong with saying that I've outgrown the values of this organization. And like I said, so if you can't, then there's always the change yourself and change your environment.
Khalil (40:40.208)
Nope.
Khalil (40:51.501)
Yep. Yep. Well, Janet, we have covered a lot over the course of this conversation. We've got a lot to over the course of the rest of our episodes. For now, we will say goodbye to our listeners. And we encourage you to continue to keep the conversation going, pull things through. You're going to notice in a couple of different places some calls to action from us. So A, we want you to share stories of leaders, teams, companies who are
Janet (40:57.387)
As always.
Khalil (41:17.851)
putting in the hard work to blend high performance in DEI. We know we hear the headlines about the companies and teams that are not doing it. Let's call out the companies that are doing it incredibly well and the teams and the individuals and get specific as Janie would say, like let's talk about what they're actually doing. And then we'd also love to hear from you. How are you planning to adjust your behavior related to companies and what you're doing in your own company or where you shop, what organizations you wind up?
kind of using and leveraging. Janet, anything else to close us out?
Janet (41:50.04)
I do. I want to hear if you are in an organization where you think it's doing wonderful things, we want to hear about that. If you are trying to change yourself, we want to hear about that. you're trying to change your environment, we want to hear about that. We want to hear all this stuff because I promise you that at some point, if we hear it and we can run with it, it will show up in this podcast. So we hope that you will help us make this conversation a more helpful one for everybody.
Reach out to us, we want to hear from you.
Khalil (42:21.038)
Thanks all. Talk to you next episode.
Janet (42:23.456)
next time.
